On 30 April 1933, Zhou married Zhang Yunhe (张允和). The couple went to Japan for Zhou's studies.[5] Zhou started as an exchange student at the University of Tokyo, later transferring to Kyoto University due to his admiration of the Japanese Marxist economistHajime Kawakami, who was a professor there at the time. Kawakami's arrest for joining the outlawed Japanese Communist Party in January 1933 meant that Zhou could not be his student. Zhou's son, Zhou Xiaoping (周晓平), was born in 1934. The couple also had a daughter, Zhou Xiaohe (周小禾).[6]

Because of his friendship with Zhou Enlai who recalled the economist’s fascination with linguistics and Esperanto, he summoned Zhou to Beijing in 1955 and tasked him with developing a new alphabet for China.[7] The Chinese government placed Zhou at the head of a committee to reform the Chinese language to increase literacy.

After 1980, Zhou worked with Liu Zunqi and Chien Wei-zang on translating the Encyclopædia Britannica into Chinese, earning him the nickname "Encyclopedia Zhou".[5] Zhou continued writing and publishing after the creation of Pinyin; for example, his book 中国语文的时代演进 (Zhōngguó yǔwén de shídài yǎnjìn), translated into English by Zhang Liqing, was published in 2003 as The Historical Evolution of Chinese Languages and Scripts.[11] Beyond the age of 100, he published ten books, some of which have been banned in China.[10]

In early 2013, both Zhou and his son were interviewed by Dr. Adeline Yen Mah at their residence in Beijing. Mah documented the visit in a video and presented Zhou with a Pinyin game she created for the iPad.[12] Zhou became a supercentenarian on 13 January 2016 when he reached the age of 110.[13] He was one of the few supercentenarians, along with Herman Smith-Johannsen and Leopold Vietoris, known for reasons other than their longevity.

Zhou died on 14 January 2017 at his home in Beijing, the day after his 111th birthday; no cause was given.[3] His wife had died in 2002, and his son had died in 2015.[3] At the time, he was the seventh-oldest known living man and the oldest known living person in China. He is one of the 100 world's verified oldest men in history.

^Rohsenow, John S. 1989. Fifty years of script and written language reform in the PRC: the genesis of the language law of 2001. In Zhou Minglang and Sun Hongkai, eds. Language Policy In The People's Republic Of China: Theory And Practice Since 1949, p. 23